When Romney campaigns in Florida, there is one person who is notably absent: hard-right Republican Governor Rick Scott. It’s not hard to understand why; Scott’s approval rating in the state slightly trails that of the clap.
Still, the explanations of why the governor and the GOP nominee keeping coincidentally “missing” each other on the campaign trail are getting kind of strained. And Scott has apparently been told to make like a prairie dog and disappear down a hidey-hole during the GOP convention: Where he once bragged about a prime-time speaking slot at the event, now he says this:
“I’ve never done a convention before,” Scott said. “My goal is just to be helpful in whatever they ask me to do.”
The Republicans think it might be helpful for Scott to schedule a trade mission to Australia in late August. Or maybe visit a leper colony.
Speaking of Florida politicians Team Romney would rather forget, does anyone believe Romney’s hastily concocted statement yesterday about vetting Rubio? What a load of horseshit.
Romney claimed that the vetting process is known only to himself and Beth Whoziwhatzit — who doesn’t talk! — but of course the sheer volume of paperwork involved in any proper vetting (i.e., one more rigorous than that conducted for Quitting Bull by Team McCain in 2008) means scads of underlings are in on the process.
I saw the clip of Romney’s statement last night, and he certainly is enjoying this being the undisputed nominee thing. I’m sure it’s been hell for such a spoiled, pampered princeling to grovel for votes, campaign cash and approval from social inferiors for the better part of two decades, and Romney is starting to give in to the temptation to use his “boss” voice more and more now that he’s coming into the home stretch and has finally subdued the tea party loons and evangelical nutbags who hated his guts.
Can you imagine what an insufferable prick he’ll be if he actually wins? Watching Romney puff up from the ultimate fulfillment of his Oedipal ambitions would be damn near as painful as seeing him complete our national journey back to the Gilded Age.
[X-posted at Rumproast]
Hillary Rettig
this post, including artwork, was a kind of perfection, and a great thing to wake up to! thanks!
lacp
Sorry, Betty, it’s all head-fake. Here’s the real deal between Scott and Romney:
http://weeklyworldnews.com/politics/47509/bat-boy-to-be-romneys-vp/
rikyrah
the title is hilarious.
Betty Cracker, are you the one that posted that hilarious visual dividing up the state of Florida?
Joey Maloney
A spokesman for the Kalaupapa leper colony on the island of Molokai, Hawaii, responded, “Fuck you. We have enough problems without being exposed to another virulent contaigion.”
MattF
I’m just thinking, since 2000, the Republican Presidential nomination process has come up with GWB, Cheney, McCain, Palin, and now Romney. Some baaad vibes there, so I’m sure Gov. Scott will find the Tampa convention edifying. And who knows who the VP nominee will be–maybe someone riding that evil cloud just over the horizon. We shall see.
Davis X. Machina
Recent polls show that while Scott is despised, his voting-roll purge is quite popular.
The trick is to have telegenic, non-felon, racist pricks running your ex-Confederate (Florida seceded before Alabama, Georgia or Louisiana) state.
NonyNony
The GOP can just ask Scott to go hang out in the Hall of Doom for a week during the convention. Maybe he and Grodd can work out the perfect plan to end Superman and the rest of the Justice League once and for all while he’s there. (I gotta say – I still can’t believe Florida elected an actual super-villain as their governor.)
rikyrah
New BLoomberg poll out: President’s leading 53-40 over Willard.
c u n d gulag
Betty,
I LOVES me some “Quitting Bull!”
I may drop “The Whore of Babblin’ On,” and steal your line!
And yes, the entire nation awaits with baited breath, waiting to hear who Mitt will pick to be his
cabana boyVice President.Politico says it’s Tim Pawlenty!
So, the man who quit the campaign, because he was afraid to lose to Michele Bachmann, is manly enough to stand behind 747-shouldered Mitt?
The man with less charisma than Pablum, is going to do what, exactly, to help Mitt, who’s even LESS charismatic, and makes Pablum seem like 5-Alarm Chili?
Oh please, let it be so!
Tim Pawlenty “Stupid Enough,” and his I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse, will be the perfect metaphor for the coming Mittens Administration, and America’s broken future.
Sadly, I don’t think Mitt’s handlers are THIS stupid.
Mitch Daniels is too short to stand behind Mitt – he’ll disappear. Though he would make a fine WH lawn-ornament!
Besides, it looks like he’ll be the next head of Perdue U. – so, good luck to all of the students there. Can you say, “Tuition Hike?”
So, my guess is “Zelig” Portman – now that Marco Rubio’s star has faded.
JPL
@rikyrah: In order to keep the polls close, networks will agree to poll only independents and republicans.
Hill Dweller
@JPL: You joke, but they have already been doing that for a couple of months. And I’m not just talking about the wingers’ polls either. ABC and CBS released some blatantly skewed polls recently.
Hill Dweller
It’s unhealthy, but I’m really starting to despise Willard and his Stepford wife.
Davis X. Machina
@JPL: Reminds me of the gag interview with Sir Alex Ferguson, on the recently-released fixtures list for Manchester United….
beltane
@Hill Dweller: Me too. I particularly despise Ann-toinette, which is interesting because I did not feel the slightest animosity towards Laura Bush or Cindy McCain, both of whom struck me as being pleasant enough people.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: If you mean this, then yes, ’twas me. I wasn’t too far off, either, though I underestimated the Northerner colonization of Central Florida considerably. Which was damn silly of me since I’ve watched those retirement communities sprout in cow pastures like mushrooms my entire life…
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Hill Dweller: They need to fix her program as well.
Mr. Prosser
Yes, Ms. Cracker, Mitt will become more insufferable. As Charlie Peirce says, “I’m Mitt Romney, b**ches, and I’m all you’ve got!”
Boudica
@Davis X. Machina: Maybe it’s been mentioned before, but while they are cleaning the voter rolls of supposed non-citizens, why not rid it of non-residents? Start sending notices to the old, white retired people telling them that they must prove they are year-round FL residents in order to vote. Whether they already are year-round residents doesn’t matter. Make ’em show the paperwork. Then you’ll see an outcry when it’s Republicans getting unfairly removed from the voter rolls.
redshirt
When is the long underway secret invasion of the South by Northern carpetbaggers going to take hold? I’ve been waiting for the de-Dixification of Florida for some time by the armies of retirees we send there every year from the Northeast. Is it the Florida water that corrupts them?
R-Jud
@beltane:
I actually sort of felt sorry for Cindy McCain, having to live with John the Volcano. Not that sorry, though, as she has six other houses in which she could avoid him when not being forced to appear with him on campaign.
beltane
@redshirt: I think the Southern mindset is like malaria; move to a malaria infested swamp and you’ll catch the disease sooner or later unless you’ve been blessed with some personal immunity.
Villago Delenda Est
Why the past tense?
I see no evidence that their animosity towards “that Mormon” has eased up.
Rmoney has to keep pandering to them to keep them at least somewhat in line. If he makes any major move toward the center, they’ll be on him like a duck on a june bug.
swearyanthony
Speaking on behalf of Australia, I would like to say: go fuck yourself. You elected the baldy freak, don’t try to dump him on us. Yes we are a nation of convicts, but WE HAVE STANDARDS
Villago Delenda Est
@swearyanthony:
I’ve often said that the US got the Puritans, and Australia got the thieves and whores, and therefore Australia won.
Redshift
I wouldn’t be surprised if Mitt actually believes Beth Whatshername actually is the only other person who knows about the vetting. Underlings don’t really register as people with Mitt; management are the only ones who know things, and drone paper-shufflers are just mindless necessities.
redshirt
Australia is awesome. Especially all the excellent names for things: A “willy-willy”?
Another Halocene Human
Obviously he needs to schedule another
vacaytrade mission in Spain. IOKIYAR.Another Halocene Human
@Boudica: Make ’em prove they’re not felons. Check their means against their IRS returns. Plenty of them living beyond them, if you know what I mean.
Another Halocene Human
@swearyanthony: It would warm the cockles of my heart if some country were to deny Scott entry on suspicion of stealing billions in government funds through fraud and thus high risk to offend again, the way governments used to deny entry to various Beatles for “drugs”.
Another Halocene Human
@redshirt: Broward County.
Don’t worry, though–the scumbags have the state all gerrymandered up. Every year
theythe Republican supermajority in Tallahassee try to outlaw any progressive lawmaking coming out of Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. Good times.ETA: clarification for out of staters
FlipYrWhig
@Boudica: I like that idea quite a lot.
ericblair
@redshirt:
This was mostly marketing bullshit used to justify tossing up “retirement communities” in every nook and cranny of the state until the entire mess blew up. Most retirees aren’t real keen on leaving their friends and families to hang out in humid swamps with a bunch of strangers until they check out, surprisingly.
Another Halocene Human
@beltane: Basically they were assholes before they moved here.
I mean, where did all the paleo-Republicans in AZ come from? Same place the west-coasters in Flah come from. The Villages also, too.
And there is an entrenched power structure. Without land/income redistribution this place will always be the plantation. Florida taxes have become more regressive since Jeb! and Alabama made a go a tax reform recently that was beaten back by the pine barons.
Of course you have to be a bit dense to believe that the PINE TREE PEOPLE are going to grab their toys and go home. Car assembly plants? Maybe. PINE TREES. Okay. But Flah slashed taxes for ATT, so…
Another Halocene Human
@ericblair: The real trick was to get the whole neighborhood to move down together. That was only possible during a time of a secular rise in home prices.
The real assholes figured out that they can travel back to Jersey when they’re very elderly and need government services big time and the suckers will pay it even though they opted out of taxes for 15-20 years in between.
Also, look out NC–a bunch of “fiscal conservatives” got out of Florida for NC when the gittin’ was good 5-6 years ago and now they are busy jacking up your state, too.
Another Halocene Human
Eric I think you do have a point–air plane flights (and even Amtrak tickets) are getting much more expensive. And seniors coming up are considerably poorer. They’re also less healthy. They need more help from family. They’re more likely to move in with/move in next to the kids rather than hide off to Flahduh and live the good life.
Also, what is it with the “sunshine” shtick? I have multiple elderly relatives who have stubbornly stuck around in Coldland and only some of them have died (not of cold), so what is the deal?
Cain
I must admit that I laughed my ass off at name ‘Quitting Bull’ and not jut haha, I mean a full throated laugh of pure pleasure!
danimal
I’m sure a Dem official has already picked up on this, but your reference to RMoney’s “Oedipal ambitions” helped me realize that there is an opening for a “We’re tired of politician’s sons screwing over the country to work out there daddy issues” meme. The elevation of Governor Romney, son of Governor Romney, is another example of the royalist tendencies of our elite institutions. I know I voted for Obama over Hillary Clinton in part due to Clinton fatigue*, there must be some lingering anti-royal-families sentiment out there.
You know, another way to tie BushRMoney together in a nice, tight package.
*I like Hillary, would have voted for her in the general, and believe she would have accomplished great things even if her husband wasn’t Bill Clinton. I just didn’t want to relive the insanity of the GOP anti-Clinton jihad. As we’ve all learned by now, anyone with a (D) after their name gets the GOP anti-Clinton treatment, as President Islamokenyanfacisocia!ist can attest. The GOP is just insane these days.
Betty Cracker
@danimal: “We’re tired of politician’s sons screwing over the country to work out there daddy issues”
Lord, yes. I think one could credibly argue that almost anyone nutty and narcissistic enough to run for president (including Mssrs. Obama and Clinton) has big-time daddy issues. But god save us from lesser sons of greater sires like Shrubya and Mittens.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
When I opened the page, it only showed on my screen down to the cow’s ears and the top of her head. My brain filled in a caricature of Rick Scott that was surprisingly accurate!
Patricia Kayden
“Can you imagine what an insufferable prick he’ll be if he actually wins?”
The Horror! Oh, the Horror!
Yes, unfortunately I can imagine. The very rich will be very happy with their tax cuts, while the rest of us 99% will be on our own. And, we’ll be at war with Iran (at the very least).
And we’ll have 4 (possibly 8) years to deal with Mr. and Mrs. Romneybot, as they kiss the feet of the billionaires and T’Baggers who put them in office and diss everyone else. Scary times!